The Wizard's Amulet - April 13th 2016 (Part 1?)

So this was a bust. Not only did we not manage to reach Eralion’s keep, but I’ve joined this quest pretty much hoping to actually learn something from a fellow sorcerer, especially the one that studied under such a prominent (rather notorious, some would say) wizard, Feriblan the Mad, but that Corin fella turned out to be quite utterly useless. Alright, maybe not entirely useless, but let me start at the beginning.

Ever since I saw Corin’s call to an escort mission on the guild’s board I was thinking “Finally, another sorcerer in the making that could probably share some arcane knowledge, maybe offering me a better understanding of my own powers.” An interesting quest he would lead only added to my eagerness, of course. Boy, was I sorely mistaken…

After a few days of travel we got to Reme, a small port town on the north coast. I’ve never been to Reme, but I immediately got that nostalgic, familiar feel, as it really reminded my of my hometown of Luskan (except for that blatant display of their holy hawk sigil all over the place). As we were approaching the city gates we noticed a petite, scrawny man with horn-rimmed glasses beckoning us. It was Corin. Not exactly a reassuring sight, but a mage is usually all about the mind, not the constitution, so I was still hopeful. Corin regarded the five of us with almost the same doubt in his eye. We definitely weren’t your run-of-the-mill band of adventurers – Benito, a Dwarf Bard, and a self-appointed leader of our group. I’ve read about his PTSD-laden adventures before. He was certainly the loudest one of the company; Fargrim, another Dwarf, this one a Druid, and a healer of the group, which is always a good thing to have; Gobart, a Drow Elf fledgling Wizard, very enthusiastic and eager to get a jump-start on this quest; Krack, a Half-Orc fellow Sorcerer, proud of his orcish heritage, which kind of rubbed Benito the wrong way; and yours truly, Elthanias, a Half-Elf Sorcerer on a lifelong search for the origin of my wild magic powers. So anyway, after a very quick introduction where Benito already managed to make Corin so uncomfortable with his conduct that he almost backed out of this whole thing, we make our way to The Starving Stirge Inn (the very notion of those winged little bloodsuckers made my skin crawl, but I powered through, as Corin already secured accommodation for us there).

As soon as we’ve entered the inn Corin exchanged glances with the bartender, nodded and went upstairs, expecting us to follow him. Benito, however, went straight to the bar and ordered “whichever alcohol”, so the bartender hands him a jug. Benito takes a swig and… spits it all over the counter in disgust. His unrefined taste buds couldn’t possibly appreciate smooth elven wine, so he asks for some ordinary dwarvish ale to wash the taste out. During that ridiculous display of dwarf etiquette (no offense to the true-to-his-hermit-background Fargrim) the rest of us glimpsed around the tavern, and I noticed a suspicious hooded elvish figure sitting at the bar checking us out. He kinda felt out of place here, but we didn’t have the time to take a closer look. Corin was already getting impatient.

We got upstairs and to the room he reserved for the meeting. We sat around the table and started with the formal introduction. Gobart decided to show off for a bit and used his Mage Hand spell to lift an apple off the table and just… move it around in mid-air. Krack thought it would be funny to mess with him for a bit, so he launched a Fire Bolt at the apple and burned it to a crisp. He was right, the look on Gobart’s face priceless. Corin didn’t find it very amusing, though, so he just moved forward with the topic. He told us how a while ago, while he was apprenticing under Feriblan the Mad, he discovered a letter sent to his master by a wizard named Eralion, who, it is said, some years ago attempted to become a lich, but failed. Enclosed was a mysterious amulet with strange markings, which Corin stole, along with the letter, in an attempt to find Eralion’s keep that is supposedly filled with various treasures. He is not alone, however, in his quest. There are other, darker, more sinister forces at work that are willing to stop at nothing to get their hands on the wizard’s amulet and the fortune that lies in the keep. Hence why he sought some worthy companions to keep him safe and share in the alleged wealth. In the middle of Corin’s speech I heard footsteps that came to a halt right outside the door. I got up, approached the door and tried to hear what’s going on. I asked for assistance and Krack was just about to join me, but the eavesdropper must’ve heard me and ran away before I could open the door and see who it was. My mind went straight to the person I saw at the counter downstairs, but the others thought I was just hearing things. Anyway, it was late and Corin suggested we call it a night. He got us two rooms with three beds each, but we all agreed that it’s safer if we all crashed in the same room, so he found us a larger one just down the hall.

Everyone hit the sack except for Benito and me. I just wanted to check out the place first, and he couldn’t sleep because of his “condition”. As we were leaving the room I saw part of a cloak disappearing around the corner. No doubts anymore, we were being spied on. Benito ran downstairs to catch the perpetrator if he tries to exit that way, and I followed him to a room at the other end of the hall. The door was ajar, but I didn’t want to get caught in a trap, so I backed up a couple of steps and used Mage Hand to push the door open further. Luckily no trap, but the spy managed to escape through the window just as I’ve entered the room. I could only see his shadow running across the rooftops. I got down to the bar and told Benito what happened. He said there’s no use in alarming the others right now, as the danger’s obviously passed, so we went back to our room to finally catch some Z’s. Benito pulled out his tent in the middle of the room and slept there. Whatever.

The next morning we got up bright and early, as we had a several day trip ahead of us. Benito and I told the rest of the group of what transpired last night and we’ve all agreed to be extra vigilant going forth. We made some last minute preparations and were on our way.

After roughly two days of walking we got to the entrance to a forest, just as the weather was starting to suddenly shift. It was pretty sunny and warm so far, and now the sky was rapidly filling with heavy grey clouds. Corin mentioned how very unusual this was for this time of year, so our Druid Fargrim tapped into his vast knowledge about nature and determined that the source of this impending storm is definitely arcane. The light drizzle that the clouds brought soon gave way to a severe rainstorm with drops as big as acorns. We quickly entered the forest seeking cover under the treetops, but to no avail. The rain was so dense that even our vision was compromised. It took us a couple of hours, but we’ve managed to reach a man-made shelter furrowed into a hillside rock. We took shelter there and made a bonfire. Gobart and Krack decided to cast their Fire Bolts at the same time and almost scorched us all. Truly wise. Before we settled, Gobart decided to take a quick look around using his superior darkvision, as the sun has started to set, just to make sure we’re not being followed by that hooded character. While he was out there the rest of us were just sitting around the fire, shooting shit, Corin showing us the amulet he was talking about. We tried to decipher the markings on it, but none of us had any idea what they meant. While Corin was putting the amulet back in his robe Krack noticed something up his sleeve, but couldn’t figure out what it was (he told us about that later on). Gobart came back shortly after, so Corin suggested we go to sleep, as it was already pretty dark and to wait the rain out, but we managed to persuade him to push forward as the storm could last for hours more, even days. As visibility was getting increasingly low, to make sure none of us get lost in the woods we employed Benito’s brilliant idea and tied ourselves to each other with rope and walked in a single file.

As we were slowly making our way through the trees and bushes (and hopefully out of the forest) the rain started to die out, and we reached a small clearing, seemingly perfect to set up camp. However, what was weird was that there were no tracks around whatsoever, animal or otherwise, which raised some suspicions, so Gobart, accompanied by Fargrim this time, again decided to scout around for a bit and make sure we’re safe. Shortly after they left, I noticed Corin had started to squirm and look around all panicky while frantically feeling himself up. “Lost something, Corin?”, asked Krack suspiciously. It was the letter. At the same time Fargrim fortuitously stepped on the letter while searching around the perimeter. Just as he was about to call out to Gobart something clocked him from behind, bringing him to the ground. It was a leucrotta, and even though it was just a cub, it was one vicious half-deer/half-racoon motherfucker, and started gnawing on Fargrim while he was still trying to figure out what the hell happened. Gobart turned around and ran toward the beast brandishing a rapier. He was aiming for the eye, but despite his superior darkvision, poked it in its shoulder. The rest of us heard the commotion and came running to our companions’ aid only to be met by this giant, bear-sized, full grown leucrotta momma. As the cub was still preoccupied with Fargrim, Gobart decided to face the big one with us and fired a Ray of Frost at him, to at least slow him down a bit. Krack tried to raise the temperature with a Fire Bolt, and I finally got the chance to use the diamond my mother gave me and cast a Chromatic Orb filled with poisonous gas. All that did some damage, but not enough, so Benito decided to do what he does best. Sing! But on the inside, though. He projected an old dwarf battle song into the leucrotta’s brain, confusing and scaring him profusely, so that he started to flee (I know exactly how the poor thing felt). Gobart quickly followed with another Fire Bolt, but missed. Luckily the beast stumbled in confusion and fell behind a bush, so we finished him up. Meanwhile, Fargrim managed to wrestle the cub off himself, get back on his feet and thwack it over the head with his staff, rendering it unconscious. We let it live, but we did skin its mother. Someone else could’ve done it better, but I had to do it, and I did it poorly, so it looks more like a roadkill than a magnificent beast. It’ll not sell for much. We finally made our way back to the clearing. Fargrim showed us the letter he stumbled upon earlier and read it aloud, much to Corin’s discomfort. It appears that Eralion was an old friend of Corin’s master and wanted him to visit him in his keep to share in the wealth and, potentially, lichdom and immortality. The amulet he enclosed was actually a key to the keep. Corin reluctantly filled in some gaps in the story. He told us about Orcus, the demon Eralion channeled through, but more importantly he told us about Vortigan, the Necromancer, Eralion’s apprentice, who would also very much like to get his hands on his master’s treasures. After learning everything that Corin kept from us so far we definitely didn’t trust him anymore, so I’ve persuaded him to give me the amulet for safekeeping. As he was handing it to me, in the corner of my eye I noticed a crow, sitting on one of the surrounding branches, glaring at us. Its eyes were glowing dark red, so it obviously wasn’t an ordinary animal. I wanted to take a closer look, but as I got up it simply vanished in thin air. When I told the rest of the group what I just saw, Corin turned deathly pale. It turned out that that crow was Talon, Vortigan’s familiar, which meant he’s onto us. Now it was clear that that hooded figure at the inn was one of his agents as well. Anyway, it was getting really late, so we decided to turn in. Krack was the first one that offered to keep watch, followed by Gobart and then Benito. Thanks, guys. The first few hours went quietly, but then Krack heard an unidentifiable buzzing noise closing in, so he woke us up. The feel of dread instantly enveloped me. I knew exactly what that was… the mother… fucking… stirges! My hand instinctively went to the scar on my neck. A remnant from my past adventure when those winged little demons almost ended me. It seems that our bonfire attracted them. Luckily, when they came into the light we’ve learned there were only three of them. We took care of them almost effortlessly (‘almost’, as my Ray of Frost missed, so Krack had to step in for me). After taking a quick look around for any more stirges we went back to sleep, this time Gobart taking over the watch. Relieved that his shift went peacefully, he went back to sleep and Benito took over. Just before sunrise he heard some rustling coming from the bushes, so naturally he went ahead and checked it out himself. It was a whole den of snake s . He lifted his crossbow to take them it out, but they it sprang towards him, biting into the weapon. He somehow managed to shake them it off and shoot them it in the head. All juiced up after such heroic skirmish he started singing screaming yet another battle song, waking us up. It was time to get up anyway, so we didn’t murder him on sight. Corin took out the map to check the direction, but I’ve noticed he had some trouble with it, so I helped him out. We were supposed to continue northbound, so we finally did. We packed up the camp and went on our merry way.

Fast forward two days we got within the reach of a village called Fair Hill. We could now clearly see Eralion’s keep in the distance. There was a farm right outside the village, which we normally would’ve just passed by, but something felt off. Gobart insisted we just continue onwards, but the rest of us agreed we should at least check it out. We should’ve listened to Gobart… When we came closer we saw three dead bodies lying around between the house and the barn. Of a man, a woman… and a child. Upon closer examination of the wounds we’ve concluded that they were likely killed by orcish weapons. Corin mentioned that Vortigan was known to hire orcs as his muscles, which likely meant he already went through this place. Krack was obviously vexed, being a Half-Orc, and Benito certainly didn’t help the situation by accusing him of being in cahoots with the Necromancer. The tension would’ve probably risen, hadn’t we noticed something out of the ordinary with the bodies, something that couldn’t relate to a simple orc attack – bite marks. Now there was no more room for doubt; Vortigan was here, and fairly recently, judging by the temperature of the bodies. Gobart’s quick thinking lead him to shoot a Fire Bolt at a man’s body, thoroughly decomposing him. He then entered the house to examine it, followed by Fargrim. Krack, Benito, Corin and I were just about to step inside when we heard the barn door opening. We turn around and there he was… Vortigan with his two orc guardians. I noticed he glanced the roof of the house, so I turned my head and saw Talon, his crow familiar, regarding us from above. He knew exactly when we were coming. As soon as I yelled for Fargrim and Gobart to come out, Vortigan mumbled something, raised his arms, and suddenly six skeletons raised from the ground, including those two bodies we forgot (rookie mistake), the woman and the child, surrounding us. At the same time Talon soared up in the air and, to our disbelief, turned into this huge gargoyle. He alighted just above us and grabbed Corin, trying to take him away, but Fargrim managed to quickly grab him by his feet, suspending him in mid air. However, as the undead horde started closing in on us, tough decisions had to be made. He had to let Corin go. We saw his look of utter disbelief as Talon was carrying him over the rooftops. I felt kinda sorry, I guess. Anyway, it was now time to show Vortigan who he chose to mess with. First I cast Sleep on him and the orcs. They succumbed, he didn’t. Benito then took his claymore with both hands, jumped up in the air and drove it in the ground with a thunderous tremor, pushing the undead mob outwards, making way for Gobart to rush towards the barn and cast the Fire Bolt again. He missed, and Vortigan managed to run inside. Luckily, the Fire Bolt hit a ball of hay and the whole place quickly went up in flames, giving us the chance to either smoke him out or leave him burn to death. Benito had none of that and ran in after him. Of course, the smoke was so dense that Vortigan managed to hide pretty easily, and after teasing Benito for a bit, and him, in turn, trying to charm him with his music (and, regrettably, failing), he got out from his hiding place, pulled a sand-like substance out of his pocket and poof vanished in a puff of smoke. As the barn was already crumbling down, Benito ran outside and joined Gobart, with the two orcs at the entrance still sound asleep. Meanwhile, the rest of us were battling the undead and, as if that wasn’t enough, Talon came back and went straight towards me, trying to grab me by my shoulders. Fargrim, again, stepped in against the stony creature and whacked him with his staff, making him leave me alone. Weird thing was, the gargoyle then simply landed in front of me, not trying to attack me or anything. While we were busy with Talon, Krack got in his ready pose, arms raised straight in front of him, waiting for the skeletons to come closer. Once they did, he unleashed a cone of fire with his Burning Hands spell, mowing them all down at once. Talon and I kept staring at each other for a minute or two, but I had enough, so I took out my diamond again and cast Chromatic Orb, this time trembling with a rage of thunder. Of course, I missed, so the creature lift off the ground again, thus giving me the chance to try once again. Critical hit. The deafening sound of the raving thunder encompassed the creature until it ruptured into hundreds of little pieces. The moment that happened we heard a scream coming from behind the barn. It was Vortigan, of course. The link with his familiar broke which, naturally, hurt him pretty bad. Gobart and Benito immediately scuttled around the barn, but they only managed to get a glimpse of him retreating through the forest. They came back just in time to see Fargrim furiously beating the remaining two zombies to a pulp with his trusty staff. The only thing left to do now was to wake up the orcs and interrogate them about Vortigan’s whereabouts. We tied them up and told them “the first one to talk walks away, the other one dies”. They both started talking at the same time, spouting nonsense, but it was obvious they know nothing. We still killed one of them, hoping the other one would come to his senses, but to no avail. You know what they say, dumb as an Orc (sorry, Krack. Well, half-sorry). So we kill him too. We looted the bodies for some armor and weapons that we could sell back at the guild, and so we set back through the forest towards Reme. As for Corin, the last we saw the poor bugger, Talon was carrying him above the rooftops in an unknown direction. We just couldn’t spare enough time to go and find him, let alone continue to the keep. We’ll just have to return some day, hoping he’ll still be around. He probably will, though, because we still have the amulet…

The Black Catacombs

My guild went on a quest to the black catacombs and all I got was this… bitchin’ enchanted robe of spell resistance! And some stones.

In short, it didn’t go as expected, but then again I wasn’t sure what to expect in the first place, so I’ll take what I can from the gained experience.

The caravan set out through the dark forest when we came to a fork in the road in the middle of the night… On the night of the full moon… You can probably guess where this is going… An unlikely band of adventurers formed to explore the ruins of a town forever frozen in time and, as it turns out, unravel only part of the mystery behind the event that petrified (literally) the local population many centuries ago. We parted ways with the caravan, for the time being.

So there we were… Clarity Nemeia, a Tiefling Warlock on a mission to shun her racial origin and prove the stereotypes wrong; Dragar Kilprax Dotrin, a silver-skinned boulder of a Dragonborn Fighter with the heart of gold; Tarian, a curious and brave Half-Elf Bard and his half-brother, Argetlam Welden, a Wood Elf Monk who devoted his life to study the Art of the Open Fist; Feanor, a tall, hauntingly beautiful Elf Paladin with alignment issues; and me, Elthanias, a Half-Elf Sorcerer on a lifelong quest to figure out where the hell my wild magic powers come from.

That is actually the reason why I’ve opted for this specific quest. Stories tell of a portal to otherworldly planes hidden deep beneath the catacombs, and the path to the said portal ought to be visible only during the full moon. My wild magic powers certainly seem to be from out of this world sometimes, so I might as well take a peek at that portal and get me some answers.

After walking for maybe half an hour we got to the ruinous town and it was quite the sight… Every inch of the place was covered in a black substance, which was likely the result of a volcano eruption. Streets, buildings… literal statues of people petrified by this black… obsidian… thing? Sad… but also quite creepy. Tarian dropped some mad knowledge on us by telling us the story of two very important, very powerful people in this town, each one having a direct opposite interpretation of the ancient texts which told of the impending doom. One of them wanted to appease the gods, but only to prolong the supposedly inevitable, the other one wanted to work against them, build knowledge, find a cure and prevent the coming disaster. Anyway, we were making our way through the blackened streets and ended up at what seemed to be the town forum which housed a water well surrounded by some benches. Behind it, a cylinder-shaped building with a cone-like roof. It almost seemed out of place amidst the other buildings so we figured it must be some sort of religious sanctuary. The door seemed to be shut solid, barred with this obsidian ash-turned-stone material. We started rummaging around the forum, trying to figure out a way in when all of a sudden Argetlam hears a buzzing noise coming from deep inside the well. Luckily we were quick to figure out what it was; ugly bat-like creatures that obviously thought we were invading their space. Argetlam swiftly pulled his cloak around the mouth of the well, containing the little beasts while Feanor tried to pry the sanctuary doors open so we can hide before they eat through the cloak fabric. Seeing him try and fail at first I tried to freeze the doors solid so they crack, but that didn’t help either. Then Dragar came to the rescue and destroyed the door with his strong, broad shoulders, so we finally managed to get in.

The chamber was dark (night time, duh) aside from a thin sliver of moonlight breaking through an opening in the ceiling, shining down on a central pillar made from what seemed to be a glass-like material with a strange force field emanating from it. Around the pillar were three altars, one of them supporting a book filled with mathematical formulas and geometrical shapes, written in draconic. Dragar tried to decipher it, but was only able to figure out that it was some kind of a grimoire listing some very advanced magical practices. The three altars were accompanied by three golden bowls filled with silver pieces. Feanor, being a lawful good paladin that he is (/s), decided to take some of that loot all for himself, with an unnerving disapproving glare from Clarity… “One should not take from the gods”, she said. I couldn’t’ve cared less, personally. Maybe if he decided to share, but alas… Meanwhile we’ve managed to open the other two doors; the left one leading further downtown, the right one blatantly showing the way to the catacombs with a giant, shining Omega symbol above the hillside entrance. Anyway, we decided to poke around for a bit more, so Argetlam, Feanor and I figured we could try and lift the three bowls simultaneously and see what (if anything) happens. And something did happen… The mounts on which the bowls stood started retracting into the ground. Argetlam and I managed to put down our bowls, but Feanor wasn’t of such luck. His feet started turning into some kind of black stone which soon enveloped him whole, thus turning him into what he deserved for not sharing in his newfound wealth… an obsidian golem. He then, of course, turned on the rest of us. I tried to slow him down with a ray of frost, but failed miserably. Clarity evoked a minion to try and tie him down, but again no luck. Only Dragar managed to contain him for a few minutes while Tarian ran out after the golem turned on me for having the nerve of trying to stop him from killing us all. Taking advantage of the ensuing commotion, Argetlam jumped out to the roof and tried to break it down and trap the Elf golem inside, but almost broke his hand in the process, while accomplishing nothing. Luckily, Dragar figured out the moonlight hurts the golem so he managed to wrestle it out of the building. The obsidian stone broke (this hurts the Elf) freeing Feanor from the curse. We’ve gathered ourselves and continued towards the Omega sign (all the while those bat creatures from the well suspiciously decided to leave us alone).

Arriving at the catacombs’ entrance we took the one hundred steps leading down the trapdoor – Dragar with his trusty shield in the front, Clarity’s minion in the back. Surely enough, the last step triggered a mechanism that trapped us inside. Armed with the torches we ventured forth through the first chamber towards the far end corridor. There was another passage in that room, just to the left of us, which we guessed lead back outside. We didn’t know exactly where, though. Anyway, we counted nine pillars in that room. Just as we were reaching the passage… the dreaded buzzing noise. You’ve guessed it; those winged little beasts again. The stirges. We start fighting them to the best of our ability; Tarian managed to put some of them to sleep, Clarity started fighting them off with her torch, Dragar used brute force and just started swiping them from the air, Feanor started poking them off with his spear, Argetlam took a few of them down with darts and I did the same with my ray of frost spell. Alas, as I was, now, in the front of the group (once Clarity stealthily hid behind one of the columns) those little fuckers started swarming me. I’ve managed to cast shield on myself so “only” five of them managed to attack and latch onto me. I just kept thinking “Oh… my… gawd, I could just die from embarrassment. Here I am, first time with this new crew and I manage to get swarmed like a fucking n00b”. And die I almost did. Took a critical hit to the neck and blacked out. Luckily the rest of the crew managed to fight off the rest, burn off the bloodsuckers on me, and just stomp the hell out of the sleeping ones. After a short rest we were good to go. I managed to heal up only partially, but Feanor helped me out by bringing me to full strength. Also, I can’t remember how or when (probably from being out cold), but we’ve encountered a riddle that we were supposed to solve, I guess; “There are two paths towards the same goal. Bend your mind and you will bend reality”. Whatever that means… Moving along…

The corridor was exactly what you’d expect from a corridor found in an ancient cursed catacomb – a death trap for the unwary. Walls on both sides were riddled with small holes sized just about for some darts, or maybe small spears, to shoot out, and even though there was just enough clear space at the bottom to crawl under, our borderline insane brave as a lion Tiefling decided to cast Blade Ward on herself and simply just… walk through. Argetlam and Dragar generously gave her their shields, just as an additional precaution. Didn’t help, though, as the trap wasn’t meant to deal weapons damage… but magic. Streams of blue, green and red lights burst through the small holes, eating away at the shields and her armor, and burning her skin, so much so that she passed out from the pain so we’ve managed to pull her back. Needles to say, the rest of us crawled across, dragging her unconscious body along with us. Towards the end of the passage the holes gave way to two reliefs, one on each side. The left one featured the face of a screaming woman. The right one, a screaming man. It was as if their anger was directed towards one another. That’s when we remembered the story that Tarian told us when we first got here, about the two people with conflicting ideals. Lowering the view you could notice that each face had a crawl space right beneath it. At that point we split up… which is always a good idea. Though it wasn’t something that we collectively agreed upon. Feanor simply decided to check out what’s behind the man’s face, and Argetlam followed after him. I opted for the woman’s face, while Dragar and Tarian stayed behind to watch over our fallen comrade (although I swear I’ve heard Tarian “joking” how he’ll loot her if she doesn’t wake up soon, talking about being a ‘chaotic neutral kind of guy’ which I don’t think means what he thinks it means).

I’m conveying this next bit as told by Feanor and Argetlam. As they’ve entered the king’s chamber (which will become apparent in a second) all there was to the room was the throne and the king’s dead, decaying body sitting on it. Feanor, a paladin still struggling with the concept of ‘lawful good’, took upon himself to help the poor king with that awful burden of a crown. Could be worth a lot of money, what it being made of solid gold, encrusted with jewels. Argetlam did the same with the king’s broad sword. This did not please the king, as they would soon find out. A breath of cold air shimmered behind them as the specter of the once great king appeared, standing tall and proud. He said nothing… just stood there for a few minutes until he vanished back into thin air (but oh so obviously displeased by the display).

At the same time I was rummaging around, what would turn out to be, the queen’s chamber. She (or rather her body) was sitting at the table, wearing a funky crimson robe with moving patterns all over it, head resting on a book which featured symbols and the language very similar to the one we’ve stumbled upon at the sanctuary. The room was filled with books and what I believed to be alchemical paraphernalia. While I was inspecting the room and the two weird stones on her head (and one that obviously fell off), she appeared, again as the king, out of thin air, followed by a breath of cold breeze. This one spoke up, though. First she asked if I was with “him”, then who the hell I was, anyway, and, finally, if I was the one foretold to bring the cure. We conversed for a few minutes and I promised to help her out by finding the cure if she’ll help me find out about that otherworldly magic that could potentially be of use to me. She agreed, mainly because she wanted to see the mad king not get his way and consequently lead the town to ruin by doing nothing out of fear from some gods. I also asked if she would mind if I take that unusual stone that rolled off her head, but I don’t think she knew what I was talking about… I don’t think she even knew she was dead. Anyway, so I took the stone and returned to the passage.

Argetlam and Feanor have already returned from their grave robbing escapade when I came back, so we briefly exchanged info on what happened in each other’s absence. Further along the corridor there was a pair of big doors, blocked by, of course, some kind of magical force field. Without anyone sharing any bright ideas I took the pretty little stone I found in the queen’s chamber and touched the force field with it… but to no effect. All it did was swallow my precious stone, which, you’ll guess, I quite took to liking in the past few minutes I had it. So then we figured that maybe the key to lowering the force field and opening the door lied in one of the chambers… which somehow obviously meant we have to side with either the king or the queen and “kill” the other one. Alright, so, even if that was the case, the queen quite obviously seemed like she was the one who was right about this whole ordeal with the localised doomsday and whatnot, however Argetlam and Feanor, in their infinite wisdom, decided to side with the king (even though they’ve relieved him of his earthly possessions not 10 minutes ago). They rushed to the queen’s room wielding the sword wanting to “end her for good”, followed by the rest of us trying to stop them.

Back in the queen’s room the specter was nowhere to be found. Dragar then tried (and quite unlikely succeeded) to call her forth by yelling “We got the cure!”. So she appeared… First a bit flustered by all the people that gathered, then very much angered by seeing the crown on Feanor’s head and the sword in Argetlam’s hands, thinking they’re “his”. She wasn’t that wrong, if you think about it. So she ordered them to drop the sword and the crown, which Argetlam did (out of fear, maybe?), but which Feanor, being a true-to-his-alignment paladin, didn’t. Quite the contrary, inebriated by the crown’s powerful effects, he picks up the sword and turns to the queen’s body at the table. I tried to persuade her to calm down but my charisma doesn’t work on ghosts, it seems (maybe only this one, we’ll see). Clarity tried the same, but also failed. Tarian automatically sided with his older brother, so there was no one else left but the brave Dragonborn who stood in front of the queen’s body, ready to fight off Feanor (supported by Argetlam). Still, after some back and forth, we’ve figured we just can’t bring the queen’s specter to senses, so… we let the shiny Paladin decapitate the poor queen. The head rolled off, the ghost vanished, as did the force field. So at least we did something. Guess the king was finally at rest. I took advantage of the new situation and, before we left, took the remaining two shiny stones and the groovy robe off her headless body. Don’t make that face at me. She was dead dead at this point.

So once again we were standing in front of the double doors. We push them open and enter what looked like a three-sided pyramid. In the middle of the tetrahedral chamber there was a giant Omega symbol made from obsidian stone, which was obviously the portal from the stories. Unfortunately it was currently inactive. Again, by the rule of three everywhere around this place, there were three burners. Only one of them was burning… and with a blue flame. We were quick to figure out that the remaining two were supposed to burn red and green, just like the lights that hurt Clarity. Dragar investigated around the portal and found a small nook behind one of the bricks that contained some stuff from previous adventurers… There was a note. I can’t remember exactly what it read, but it spoke, nay, warned about the worlds beyond the portal. Much to my frustration we weren’t able to open the damn thing. Every time we tried to light up the other two burners, the fire just burned with the regular orangey flame and died out after a few seconds. Everyone eventually agreed to turn back and get out of the catacombs. Everyone but me. Increasingly frustrated I stepped to the portal… and passed through. I really don’t know what I expected to happen, passing through a dormant portal, but I suddenly saw their faces shimmer, as though I was looking at them through the heat of the flame. The next thing I knew, I collapsed and blacked out (again!). I was told that Dragar ran towards me (around the portal) and when he was just about to pick me up noticed that the robe I took suddenly looked different. The live pattern on it started shifting around swiftly until it came to a halt, forming an open circular symbol, similar to Omega, but with a dot in the middle. That’s all that happened. The crew helped me come to, we took another short rest, then made our way back towards the entrance.

We knew that the trapdoor were shut closed by a mechanism, not magic, so we tried pushing it open. We noticed that actually something from the outside kept it from opening. Like a boulder, or something. So we pushed for a few minutes until we finally managed to budge it a bit. Then we pushed some more. When we finally managed to open it, we saw what barred the door… it was one of the benches from the forum around the water well… Who in the seven hells was here? There were no footprints or anything… Regrettably we couldn’t stay and figure that out. It was almost daylight and we had to split the loot (including the one that Dragar found and selflessly shared) and get back to the caravan, so they don’t continue onwards without us. But I’ll come back one day and figure it all out… With this crew or another (DM-permitting).

Obsidian City - Catacombs

I’ll be polite and introduce myself. My name is Tarian Welden, and I’m a Half-Elf. I use magic trough art, mostly music. Fame, glory, money, family, all these things brought me to my adventure(s). You’ll see my personality, traits, possessions and family in my entries, but for now, this is it.

Well, this will be fun. Diary entry #1:

So, for those of you who are hearing the name “Guild of the Platinum Dragon” first time, let me explain. As far as I know, This is a Guild for travelers and adventurers of all sorts. I joined because of my brother, but also because it might bring me fame, glory, all the good stuff…..

Anyway, before I begin, I’ll just tell you I wasn’t traveling alone. My (half) brother, Argetlam Welden. He’s an Elf, Wood Elf to be specific. He is trained, and still trains in martial arts. The only reason I regret not remembering the other’s names is because I need to write them here. There was an Elven paladin, follower of a God, I think God Apollo. He was full of himself, thinking he was the best one around. There was also a Demon-like woman, tiefling, with us, I think her name was Clarity. I think there was also another Half-Elf who coincidentaly also uses magic, but he doesen’t use any kind of art to channel it. His name was Elthanias. There was also a Dragon looking antromorphic creature with us, male, who was more of a front row fighter then anything.

We entered the obsidian covered town. Many speculate it was the doing of a Volcano, but I’ve heard enough stories about it. There was a fight between two sides, one for progress and one against. The progress studied magic to, which I later found out, cure a sickness or diasease of sorts. Though for a good cause, in the end progress brought demise. And, with that the town, along with the people, ended up frozen in obsidian, frozen in time.

We walked trough the town when my older brother decided he wanted to touch a statue. I don’t know why, but soon after he put his hand on it, he quickly pulled it back. We continued onward when we ran into a well, and a “temple” of sorts wich I will cover later. My brother threw a pebble into the well, probably to see how deep it is. Well, he disturbed the locals, and the semi-bat blood drinking creatures started flapping their wings going upwards. My brother quickly covered the well with a clothing piece. I held it down along with my brother and someone else (everything is a little blurry now). Well, some of us holding it down switched places, and in the end we burned the cloth and let it take those bloody creatures down.

(Now, before I start mentioning next events, I want to explain. The people that used to live here believed in a God of magic, or magic itself. They believed the number three was special, the reasons I don’t know. The building I’m about to mention had a round roof, wich is a sing that it was used for religion or simmiliar intentions. Now, let me get back to my story)

Meanwhile, a round building, also covered by obsidian, was getting slashed at just to get the door open. I didn’t see how, but the door did eventually get opened and we got inside. The paladin took some silver from a bowl while me, Clarity and the Dragon read some sort of magic or religion based book. It mentioned capturing or making souls, though the text did get damaged with age. One thing that was continualy mentioned was this Omega, which means end. It seems I forgot to mention this: there was a triange on the floor and on each end there was an altar. In the middle of the triangle was an invisible pillar On all three altars there were bowls that filled with silver after the moon reached a specific point, and on one there was the book I mentioned. Well, while we read it, others kicked the doors down and went to take the bowls. Why would anyone want a bowl?

Before I continue, I want to say that each of the doors pointed to one of the three: a floating Omega symbol, the well or stables of some sort.

Anyway, after my brother, the other Elthanias and the paladin took the bowls of the altars, everyone but the paladin threw them away and started running from the Chapel of sorts. I had to take out my rapier and knock out the bowl out of the paladin’s hands. Then, I noticed it. His hands and feet were starting to turn opsidian, and a glow which was not there appeared in his eyes. Well, I ran out of the chapel. He went for me, but Elthanias blasted him with ice. Well, I should thank him for that as our ex-companion went for him instead of me.

The Golem almost entered the moonligh, which hurt him. The obsidian started falling off him but he quickly went into the shadows of the chapel. My brother punched the roof, which I know because I heard his reaction to the pain. We tried pulling the golem out, but what got him at the end was a spell cast by Clarity and some words that were supposed to wake him up from the golem state. Well, it worked. We got our full-of-himself paladin back.

Next, we went to the floating symbol of Omega. There was a path to underground there, I later found out the number of stairs is exactly one hundred. It was a very, very narrow halway and we had to walk one by one. When we got to the last step, specificly when the first one of us got there, we heard a click. It was decided we shall skip the stair, the rest of us which still didn’t step on it.

We found ourselves in a room with nine pillars (all visible). There were two ways, a straight one and one that branched off. We decided to go trough the straight one when Clarity stumbled onto something. The middle pillar of the nine went down, revealing some sort of light and those same vampiric-semi-bat things appeared. I put some of them to sleep and I thank god I did, as they are very, very annoying when in numbers. Now, we fought them well and unfortunatly Elthanias sucumbed to the wound at one point. I used my magic to heal him back, unfortunatly not by much, and took one of the torched he was carrying. We managed to slay all of them, after which we decided to rest a little. Also, before we went to sleep we saw the light formed into some sort of riddle. It involved bending your will, but I didn’t get much use of it. As much as I love riddles, I wasn’t up for solving this one.

I think the Paladin still doesen’t know I stole his silver peaces after he fell asleep.

When we woke up, we continued on our way. We got to a point from wich there were holes in the upper half of the wall. Thankfully Clarity warned us of it. They were small, and appeared for thirty feet. I was just waiting to see what was going to be done about it. Clarity was given two shields and she stepped the first step, some sort of light beams connecting two holes on the two sides. Three of those pairs went to Clarity, and she was covered with blisters after that. Then, since they noticed the lower half of the wall is safe, we crawled trough those thirty feet, draging Clarity.

We got to a place where things got a little dizzy for me, whether it was the dust that made me naseous or something I ate that day. Well, I guarded Clarity, resisting the tempetation of stealing her gold. I stole silver from my companion, but gold? That might be too much. There were two human beings sculptured on the walls, a man and a woman. They looked like they were fighting about something (verbaly, not physicly). Well, there were secret passages to some sort of rooms.

Basicly, I was told there was a king and a researcher, maybe magic user of some sort. My brother (along with the Paladin and the Dragon) who saw the king wanted to kill the woman and Elthanias wanted to kill the king. I sided with my brother and we went inside. This is where things got really blurry, as I only remember the woman getting killed. I think I blacked out or something there, as I can only remember something with fire, a portal of some sorts and our way getting blocked.

I’ll end my first entry here. I hope we get to go together the same way we went now, as we already now each other as a group. Maybe I’ll have more chance to do what I do best, decieve, steal and perform? Maybe I’ll find a reason to correct my ways? Who knows. I’ll try remembering their names from now on, and I’ll try not to steal from my companions. Who knows when you might need ’em?